1989 Diamond Back Ascent EX

Every now and again I have a proper mooch around the web for vintage mountain bikes. It was during one of those mooches that this Ascent EX popped up in Perth.

Understandably, no-one was interested. After a few weeks the asking price fell and I contacted the seller. I’ve always liked the look of these bikes, and they were cool with packing it for a courier, so I took it off their hands.

From the photos the drivetrain looked to be original, and complete. It needs lots of new old stock parts (saddle, seat post, stem, grips, shifter levers, pedals etc) and a new pair of Tioga amberwall tyres.

I’m hoping with a bit of TLC it will clean up to look like it did in the 1989 catalogue. (Hey, why are you laughing???)

This was a very slow purchase. I first contacted the seller on July 17th. I paid for it on July 26th. By August it still hadn’t left Perth.

It was finally ready for collection on November 26th (it took that long for the seller to get the pedals off) and it arrived about 10 days later.

This bike is now in bits while I clean the frame and source the parts.